Donor-Driven Designs on the University

Abstract Universities across the world are increasingly dependent on substantial gifts from the super-rich and their charitable foundations for capital development. The “golden age of philanthropy” compels academic managers to become campaigners and supplicants and rewards those whose research appeals to the philanthropic marketplace. Philanthropy thereby shapes the organization, activities and behavior of the contemporary university. Additionally, it literally shapes campuses. Substantial gifts, arriving as they do on a timeline that suits philanthropists, re-order development priorities, disrupt masterplans, and generally channel funds toward research in the biosciences, health and technology. Consequently, there has been a boom in university laboratory construction since the early 1990s, especially in biomedical research. This paper explores how philanthropy might have specifically architectural effects. Focusing on Atlantic Philanthropies and their investment in the Translational Research Institute, in Queensland, Australia, it is argued that philanthropy produces buildings that are luxurious and ornamented and, in the context of university requirements, ornamental.